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Tag: banning e-cigarettes

  • Walmart To Halt E-Cigarette Sales

    Walmart To Halt E-Cigarette Sales

    The American Vaping Association has criticized Walmart for punishing e-cigarette companies but continuing to sell regular cigarettes.

    With so much focus on the dangers of vaping in the news, one of the largest retailers in the world is announcing they’re going to phase out e-cigarettes.

    As Yahoo reports, Walmart has circulated an internal company memo which reads: “Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam’s Club U.S. locations.” 

    Retailers React To Pressure

    The memo also stated that once the current inventory of e-cigarettes has sold, Walmart will “complete our exit” from selling them. 

    In the wake of nine deaths that have been linked to vaping, the FDA is launching a criminal investigation and lawmakers have implored the current administration to get rid of e-cigarettes altogether. 

    Back in May, Walmart voluntarily raised the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21. 

    As CNBC reports, a number of companies don’t want to wait for an FDA crackdown on e-cigarettes, and have been instituting their own bans on them. (CBS, WarnerMedia and Viacom have all decided to stop airing e-cigarette ads as well.)

    At the same time, the American Vaping Association has criticized Walmart for punishing e-cigarette companies but continuing to sell regular cigarettes. In a statement, the association’s president, Gregory Conley, said, “You know you are in the middle of a moral panic when big corporations like Walmart find it is easier to sell deadly combustible tobacco products than to sell harm reduction alternatives.”

    Prior to Walmart’s big move, the Trump administration announced it was moving ahead on banning flavored e-cigarette products. So far, Michigan and New York have banned flavored e-cigarettes just this month. San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the sale of e-cigarettes this past June.

    As Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement, “The Trump administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Is Vitamin E Behind The Wave Of Vaping-Related Illnesses?

    Is Vitamin E Behind The Wave Of Vaping-Related Illnesses?

    The New York Department of Health is on the hunt for the cause of the recent rash of vaping-related illnesses. 

    As reports of respiratory illnesses—and at least six deaths—related to the use of electronic or e-cigarettes continue to mount, and while lawmakers work to ban flavored vaping devices, health officials in New York have found “very high” levels of vitamin E acetate, a thickening agent, in many of the cannabis vape products used by the individuals who became sick.

    The state’s Department of Health announced that the acetate is now a “key focus” of their investigation, and submitted more than 100 samples to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for testing.

    As Leafly noted, Vitamin E is the umbrella term given to several similar types of oils called tocopherols. They can be extracted from vegetables or made synthetically from petroleum, and are most commonly used as a dietary supplement or as an ingredient in food and/or cosmetics, such as face creams. 

    Highly Toxic When Inhaled

    Though topical application of tocopherols can lead to some skin reactions, inhaling them is highly toxic and can lead to serious health issues. When inhaled, tocopherols adhere to the fluid that lines the interior of the lungs, preventing oxygen from entering the body, and causing cellular death. That, in turn, causes an immune system reaction that resembles pneumonia, with reported symptoms including cough, chest pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, fever and forms of gastrointestinal distress.

    While testing in state-run markets can prevent additives from being used in vape cartridges, they are not specifically banned in legal adult-use markets.

    Alex Dixon, the CEO of Floraplex, which makes a chemical thickener called Uber Thick, told Leafly that tocopherols could be found in vape cartridges in “every store in downtown Los Angeles, [and] just about any online sales platform you can think of.”

    CDC director Robert Redfield said that while vitamin E acetate has been found in many of the samples used by the sickened individuals, “People need to realize that it is very probable that there are multiple causes.”

    “No one substance, including Vitamin E acetate, has been identified in all of the samples tested,” the FDA added in a statement. “Identifying any compounds that are present in the samples will be one piece of the puzzle, but will not necessarily answer questions about causality.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Teen Injured By Exploding E-Cigarette

    Teen Injured By Exploding E-Cigarette

    The e-cigarette explosion caused extensive wounds to the young man’s mouth, including a broken lower jaw and missing teeth.

    A 17-year-old boy suffered severe facial injuries, including a broken jaw, when an e-cigarette exploded in his mouth.

    The incident and the extent of his injuries were detailed in a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine and penned by the pediatric trauma surgeon who treated him after the explosion.

    While incidents of e-cigarettes or “vapes” exploding are rare, they can cause serious injuries, and two fatalities have been reported as the result of such an explosion.

    According to coverage of the report by Live Science, the explosion, which took place in March 2018, required the teenager to be sent more than 200 miles from his home in Ely, Nevada to an emergency room in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was treated by the report’s co-author Dr. Katie Russell, a pediatric trauma surgeon at the University of Utah and Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. The boy had suffered extensive wounds to his mouth, as well as several missing teeth and a broken lower jaw.

    Russell and other doctors had to remove several additional teeth from the boy’s mouth because their sockets had been irreparably damaged. A dental plate was installed under his lower gums to stabilize his jawbone, and his jaw was wired shut for six weeks to allow his mouth to close properly.

    Russell told Live Science that she and her colleagues published the report because they had been shocked by the extent of the damage caused by the explosion.

    “When I met this patient, I had no idea that a vape pen could do this,” she said. “It takes a lot of force to break your jaw.”

    According to a report issued by “Tobacco Control,” an estimated 2,035 burn and explosion injuries from e-cigarette use were reported by U.S. hospital emergency rooms between 2015 and 2017.

    Since the event reported in the case study, more explosions have been reported, including an incident in January 2019 when a 24-year-old Texas resident died after a metal shard from an exploding vape entered his neck and severed an artery.

    The exact reason for the explosion has yet to be determined, but as the Times reported, various sources have suggested that the lithium-ion battery used in vape products can overheat to the point of explosion.

    A 2017 report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency noted that such batteries “are not a safe source of energy for such devices,” while a blog post from the Massachusetts General Hospital Research Institute said that vaping devices that employ an “open system” – which include a rechargeable battery with reservoirs that are filled with e-liquid – are less safe than ones with closed systems, which use pre-filled cartridges that attach to a rechargeable battery, or ones that can’t be recharged.

    The Food and Drug Administration offered a list of safety suggestions for e-cigarette users, including the use of devices with safety features, keeping loose batteries away from metal objects (to prevent an accidental charge), replacing wet or damaged batteries, and keeping vape devices away from extreme heat or cold.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • San Francisco May Become First US City To Ban E-Cigarettes

    San Francisco May Become First US City To Ban E-Cigarettes

    San Francisco is one vote away from officially putting a “moratorium” on e-cig sales.

    San Francisco is on track to becoming the first city in the United States to effectively ban e-cigarettes—amid rising concern that youth vaping has reached “epidemic” levels.

    The city’s Board of Supervisors approved a measure that would prohibit sales of electronic cigarettes by a unanimous vote, and will need a second vote to make it official.

    “We spent the ‘90s battling Big Tobacco, and now we see its new form in e-cigarettes,” said supervisor Shamann Walton, who voiced concern over the role of e-cigarettes in increasing “nicotine addiction for middle school children [and] high school students.”

    City officials prefer to call it a “moratorium” on sales instead of a ban—put in place until there is approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to local reporter Ali Wolf.

    Though the FDA has been very vocal about the concerning rise of vaping among youth, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said that until the agency acts, “it’s unfortunately falling to states and localities to step into the breach.” Herrera said that young people “have almost indiscriminate access to a product that shouldn’t even be on the market.”

    Youth vaping has reached “epidemic” levels, said former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

    “We didn’t predict what I now believe is an epidemic of e-cigarette use among teenagers,” said Gottlieb in a September 2018 statement. “I use the word epidemic with great care. E-cigs have become an almost ubiquitous—and dangerous—trend among teens. The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we’re seeing in youth, and the resulting path to addiction, must end.”

    He continued, “The FDA won’t tolerate a whole generation of young people becoming addicted to nicotine as a tradeoff for enabling adults to have unfettered access to these same products.”

    Another proposal endorsed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors would ban the manufacturing of e-cigarettes on city property.

    One Nebraska school district is taking on this “epidemic” by implementing random nicotine testing on some students this fall.

    “The skyrocketing growth of young people’s e-cigarette use over the past year threatens to erase progress made in reducing youth tobacco use,” said CDC Director Robert R. Redfield. “It’s putting a new generation at risk for nicotine addiction.”

    View the original article at thefix.com